Interview with Dr. Sean Adams, USDA ARS

Interview with Dr. Sean Adams, USDA ARS

A Conversation With Dr. Sean Adams
of the USDA Agricultural Research Service

The members of ASN are the brightest minds in nutrition research
and practice. Dr. Sean Adams of the United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is no
exception. Dr. Adams and his colleagues at the ARS are at the
forefront of metabolic physiology investigation. As Dr. Adams
explained in our recent conversation, ARS's study of how nutrients
are handled in the body, and how that can impact health, places
their work on the cusp of “potentially leveraging specific food
choices to prevent disease, even in the absence of any weight
change.” In their work with sedentary, obese,
insulin-resistant, middle-aged women, ARS researchers found “robust
improvements in their disease risk markers” within as little as a
week of feeding these individuals “wholesome nutrient-rich
food.” Based on these findings, Dr. Adams speculates that the
“next frontier in medicine” may be the use of food-based approaches
to complement drug-based approaches for the improvement of
metabolic health, and, ultimately health in general.

Dr. Adams was kind enough to speak with us about the research that
led to these advances, as well as his recent review in Advances in Nutrition and his
experience as a member of ASN.

Interviewer: What was it
about nutrition that initially sparked your interest?

Dr. Adams: In my case, the
initial interest in nutrition came through a roundabout way.
Going back to my undergraduate and Master's days at UC Santa Cruz,
I had an early love of comparative physiology, with a particular
interest in how metabolic physiology differs across species and the
natural adaptations that evolve to optimize energetics and fuel
utilization. It wasn't until later, during my PhD program at
University of Illinois, that I transitioned into formal nutrition
science training.

Interviewer: Where along
this path did you encounter ASN, and what made you decide to join
the organization?

Dr. Adams: Well, as I said,
I had an interest in comparative physiology, so most of my early
days were spent going to meetings for the American Society of
Zoologists and the American Society of Mammalogists. It was at
Illinois that my major professor, Dr. Jack Odle, introduced me to
ASN, which was (and remains) the go-to society for anyone
interested in the nutrition field. ASN's Scientific
Sessions at Experimental Biology (EB) was my first experience
attending a large-scale scientific meeting. I was immediately
hooked at that point, because I saw that ASN was obviously a very
good fit for what I was interested in.

Interviewer: What parts of
you membership have you found most beneficial?

Dr. Adams: The first key
advantage of ASN, I have found, is the collaborative nature and the
interpersonal interaction that you find at the annual meeting at
Experimental Biology and the other society events. They allow you
to connect with peers, sometimes those conducting very different
research from your own. Those interactions can lead to unique
research collaborations that combine a variety of perspectives.
That is another advantage: the society supports such a wide range
of areas of study, enabling you to come out of your comfort zone
and learn about other perspectives that, surprisingly, seem to
converge.

The second major benefit for me has been the open access to
opportunities for participation in the society. ASN is very
encouraging to young scientists who want to get involved, whether
it be through committee work, different EB sessions, or other
activities.

Interviewer: Would you
describe some of the current research in the Adams Laboratory for
ARS?

Dr: Adams: Our lab studies
metabolic physiology. One of the tools we are using, currently, is
our collaborative work here as well as at other institutions that
utilize metabolomic techniques to decipher the changes in
intermediary metabolism when an individual progresses from simple
obesity, to insulin resistance, to type 2 diabetes. More
importantly, we are investigating whether metabolites at these
stages simply reflect the progression toward poor health, or if
they may potentially participate in disease
causation.

Interviewer: You recently
published a review in ASN's newest journal, Advances in Nutrition, which marked
its 1-year anniversary this November. Would you mind giving some
insight into why you chose this journal and why you wrote the
review?

Dr. Adams:Advances in Nutrition provides a unique
venue that supports presentation of new concepts in concert with a
more traditional review format. In this way, the reader gains a
succinct overview of the latest developments in the field, while
also considering how these developments can be interpreted in light
of an integrative picture. This is a strength of the journal and
helps carve out a much-needed niche in the nutrition field.

The review emanated from some recent developments in the study of
diabetes and obesity in which proteins and amino acids, which had
been ignored in many ways over the past several decades, have now
experienced a resurgence of interest as potentially being involved
or affected by insulin resistance, obesity, and Type 2
diabetes. There has been some controversy regarding research
indicating that certain amino acids may potentially exacerbate
insulin resistance and disease, and yet studies have found that a
high-protein diet and specific types of proteins can have a
positive effect on metabolic health.

The second point the review set out to address is the recent
application of metabolomics, including some of our own research,
that has pointed toward certain amino acids as providing biomarkers
for metabolic health and insulin resistance, making them potential
markers for Type 2 diabetes risk.

The purpose of the review was to provide a unified perspective on
these issues based on the historic literature to explain the
operation of amino acid metabolism during the insulin-resistant
state as well as to question whether these changes reflect a deeper
issue of energetics in mitochondria that could, in turn, exacerbate
disease. I also wanted to highlight the concept of
anaplerotic stress, which can ultimately lead to the inefficient
operation of mitochondria.